Not everyone in the world uses Windows Media Player, for reason of their own choosing. Some refuse to use it for it’s sound quality and lack of custom settings in controlling it, others find it’s lack of codecs a painful reminder of how bad a mass developed music player can be. Personally, my choice of using AIMP2 is due to how Windows Media crashes over the simplest things, and can not handle the entire volume of my music as it is in a multitude of different formats, from FLAC to OGG to MP3 to WAV.

However, over previous months, I have always wondered how come Windows Live users and MSN users had to use WMP for their ‘Now Playing’ to work, but no other media players could work out of the box. It’s been a feature that has upset me and eluded answer for a while, as I’d like to show off what I’m listening to, too. Shouldn’t we all be allowed to share our favorite tunes? While this isn’t something that a lot of people might want to consider, there is a way to make the mass majority of the players out there work with Now Playing.

Introducing AMIP, also known as Advanced mIRC Integration Plug-in. While it no longer is an IRC-only plug-in, it is what we are going to use to provide Now Playing compatibility with Windows Live Messenger. Simply download the version that works with your media player (It supports iTunes, WinAmp and players that use WinAmp plugins, FooBar, and QCD/QMP) and direct it to where your media player is installed. It will install a plug-in that provides the functionality without having to trade off to a different media player. If you’re not happy with the preset options, you can always change it by installing the configurator (which requires Java) and modify it from there.

Windows Live Messenger Now Playing

As you can see, I have managed to fool Windows Media Player into thinking I’m using Windows Media Player, but in fact, it’s AIMP2, as the screenshots show. You can also add onto other messaging clients or other IRC clients, or if you really so choose, make a dynamic signature for yourself. All of this done by one simple script. The documentation really is dead simple to follow and I’d highly recommend that if you’d like to get into the heavier customization of AMIP Now Playing, that you look it over before modifying it too far. But if you just need the basic functionality of AMIP without tweaking, it’s just a simple download, unzip, install to your plugins folder, and start your Now Playing on Windows Live Messenger. A note for Windows 7 users, you must have Windows Media Player installed and not removed, or this tip will not work for you.

- AMIP Now Playing Download Page -
- AMIP Now Playing Documentation –


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